"Madhouse," also released under the titles "And When She Was Bad" and "There Was a Little Girl," focuses on Julia, a teacher in Savannah, Georgia whose twin sister, Mary, has spent most of her life in a psychiatric institution. After an overdue visit to see her, Julia becomes increasingly paranoid about her sister's ominous warning that she will take revenge on her, and as their mutual birthday approaches, people in Julia's life start dying.
Co-written and directed by Italian filmmaker Ovidio G. Assonitis (who several years prior directed the fever-dream "Exorcist" ripoff "Beyond the Door"), "Madhouse" is a halfway decent slasher film that draws on a confluence of contemporaries, but doesn't quite manage to live up to what it sets out to do. The film has been credited by genre fans for its atmosphere and photography, and that is most definitely where I feel the film excels as well. The house it's set in is wildly eerie and the Georgia setting lends an additional layer of Southern Gothic atmosphere that is at times intoxicating.
At times the film feels like a straightforward slasher; at others, it seems like it's edging into the territory of the supernatural, and this lack of transparency keeps the audience on their toes for the first half. The film begins to lose this balancing act though in the last thirty minutes with a premature slipshod reveal and a conclusion that feels uninspired and lazily unfurled. It doesn't necessarily go where you expect it to—I'll give it that— but it's less about the nature of the revelation and more about how it's broached in the narrative. The film was notoriously banned in the UK during the "video nasty" era, and it does boast some considerable gore, though I did feel the bulk of the killings relied a bit too much on the canine dispatch (which itself seems to be a riff on "The Omen" and "Suspiria"). The cast is mostly made up of unknowns, but the performances are decent for a film of this type.
Overall, I found "Madhouse" to be a bit underwhelming, mainly because it sets itself up for greatness, and then handles its conclusion in a way that feels lazy and uninspired given all that precedes it. As sluggish as the last act is, I do have to praise the film for its curation of atmosphere and the moody cinematography. There are some truly unnerving scenes in the house that are memorable, and the film does manage to establish a sense of foreboding before it nearly undoes itself. 6/10.
